DUP and UUP relations are not good but without an electoral pact seats could be lost, writes DAN KEENAN
THE BUILD up to the Westminster election in the North has so far has been marked by increasingly bitter exchanges between the main unionist parties over unionist unity.
Despite the fragmentation of unionism over these past 40 years, the main parties have forged voting alliances at key points in history in an attempt to maximise electoral gain.
However this time new strains are pulling the Ulster Unionists and the DUP into highly antagonistic positions.
At the last Westminster election in 2005 Sinn Féin held Fermanagh and South Tyrone thanks partly to the presence of more than one unionist candidate. The SDLP caused the surprise result of that election, taking South Belfast from the Ulster Unionists, again due to a choice of pro-Union candidates in what is arguably the North’s most diverse constituency.
While anxious to reverse these results, the main unionist parties are increasingly divided over a common path to take. The Ulster Unionists, now in a voting arrangement with the British Conservatives, are jointly committed to standing as Ulster Conservative and Unionist – New Force candidates in each of the 18 Northern Ireland constituencies. But this approach has already cost Sir Reg Empey his only MP and forced the resignation of an Assembly member.
Lady Sylvia Hermon, opposed to David Cameron’s Tories, has finally quit the Ulster Unionists to stand as an independent in North Down. She is supported by Assembly member Alan McFarland, a constituency colleague and the man who unsuccessfully contested the party leadership against Sir Reg following David Trimble’s departure.
For a move designed to boost party appeal after years of reversals at the hands of Peter Robinson’s DUP, the UCUNF project showed its capacity to backfire. In other elections however the Tory link-up has provided the Ulster Unionist with encouragement, not least in last summer’s European elections and in council byelections.
The DUP, on the other hand, has made calls for unionist unity a priority in the unofficial “pre-election” campaign. At a briefing for journalists in Belfast last week, Mr Robinson spoke at length about the importance of an accord and of the DUP’s declared willingness to conclude one. He referred to a long-standing offer to share with the Ulster Unionists the two potentially winnable seats and, no doubt correctly, to unionist unhappiness at the loss of Westminster MPs because of “split voting”.
But DUP speeches and press statements – some 20 of them in just three weeks, according the Ulster Unionists – are becoming increasingly pointed and critical.
Matters worsened last week when Sir Reg and his Stormont Executive colleague Michael McGimpsey pressed the DUP leader to explain himself over allegations about his personal business dealings and the purchase and sale of land near his home for just £5.
Mr Robinson, already wounded by the controversy over his wife’s affairs, went on the attack. Accusing the BBC of trying to smear him on the cusp of an election and then branding his Ulster Unionist critics as “liars”, his remarks have marked a sharp deterioration in relations between his party and the Ulster Unionists.
All this has taken place against the backdrop of vehement opposition to both main unionist parties from Jim Allister’s Traditional Unionist Voice which is posing a challenge in the Paisley stronghold of North Antrim.
Unionist unity could still theoretically be achieved in Fermanagh South Tyrone and in South Belfast by the selection of an agreed candidate who is a member of neither party.
No name has emerged yet in Belfast, but some have come to the fore in Fermanagh. Whether such a candidate will emerge or not will depend on a dramatic, and at this stage unexpected, easing of the tensions between the two main parties.